We just can’t get enough RAINBOW, and if you like classic hard rock then you need to listen to “Monsters Of Rock : Live at Donington 1980“, the performance of Ritchie Blackmore & Co at the legendary British festival.
A poor sounding tape circulated among fans for decades, until a few years ago the master tapes of the recorded concert were found, restored, and finally properly released as ”Monsters Of Rock : Live at Donington 1980”. Sound quality is very good.
On Saturday, August 16th, 1980 Rainbow took to the stage to headline the first rock festival to be staged at Castle Donington. It was the culmination of the band’s tour in support of the hugely successful studio album ‘Down To Earth’ released in 1979, and would prove to be the last live show featuring this particular line-up of the band: Graham Bonnet (vocals), Ritchie Blackmore (guitars), Don Airey (keyboards), Roger Glover (bass) and Cozy Powell (drums).
The set featured tracks from ‘Down To Earth’ alongside classics from earlier in their career. There are virtuoso solo spots for Blackmore, Airey and Powell which serve to highlight the sheer musical prowess in the band. The show climaxes with Ritchie Blackmore destroying his guitar and thrusting it into an amp which promptly bursts into flames before fireworks burst overhead at the conclusion of an explosive show.
Even though Rainbow only made one album with Graham Bonnet as lead vocalist (the magnificent ‘Down To Earth’), they did embark on a successful tour with him and that culminated in their historic headline concert at the very first Monsters Of Rock show at Donington.
This release marks the first official release of that concert, as a CD and DVD set. The recording was found after many years lost, and although a couple of tracks performed that night were irrecuperable, we have here almost the entire stupendous show.
While Rainbow fans may have begrudged the departure of Ronnie James Dio as vocalist, there can be no doubt that this line-up of Bonnet, Roger Glover (bass), Cozy Powell (drums), Don Airey (keyboards) and the legendary Blackmore on guitar, was a world beater of a band.
Kicking off with ‘Eyes Of The World’, the group set their stall out early, opening the show with new material and basing the bulk of their performance around it. ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ goes down a storm, before Bonnet is tasked with his first Dio track, the epic ‘Stargazer’. I think he does a creditable job on what is a majestic song so synonymous with Dio, but he’s better still on ‘Catch The Rainbow’.
‘Lost In Hollywood’ is a real powerhouse, before the obligatory solo spots from Airey, Powell and Blackmore which range from the impressive to the tedious, as it eats up about twenty minutes of the set. Things get back on track with a brief breakneck rendition of Deep Purple’s ‘Lazy’, before ‘All Night Long’ explodes. This allows Bonnet to engage in some crowd participation.
Blackmore loved Bonnet’s cover of ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ which was on the singer’s debut solo album, and a version of that is included here, albeit it in much heavier form, before ‘Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll’ brings things to an end.
Sadly, the renditions of ‘Man On The Silver Mountain’ and ‘Love’s No Friend’ are missing / lost, as is the instrumental rendition of ‘Kill The King’ (I would have liked to have heard Bonnet try his hand at that) which originally closed the show.
For any Rainbow / classic hard rock fan this is a piece of history and a great performance, which has been restored very well. It’s a pity some songs are missing, but regardless of that, this is a great document of a short lived, but superb era of a legendary group.
01 – Intro / Eyes Of The World
02 – Since You’ve Been Gone
03 – Stargazer
04 – Catch The Rainbow
05 – Lost In Hollywood / Guitar Solo
06 – Difficult To Cure / Keyboard Solo
07 – Drum Solo / Lost In Hollywood (reprise)
08 – Lazy
09 – All Night Long
10 – Blues
11 – Will You Love Me Tomorrow
12 – Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll
Guitar – Ritchie Blackmore
Keyboards – Don Airey
Bass, Vocals – Roger Glover
Drums – Cozy Powell
Lead Vocals – Graham Bonnet
Rainbow – Monsters Of Rock Live At Donington 1980 (2016), MP3+FLAC
 |
